For the past few weeks, I’ve been meaning to write about travel and expand a little bit on my personal wanderlust. I’ve wanted to share some thoughts on why travel is important to me and why, despite what you may think, anyone can afford to travel with a little planning and online booking savvy.

True to name of this blog, I like to think that if you were to ask people close to me “What’s Josh’s favorite ‘thing’ to do?” you’d be likely to get one of two answers: working out or traveling. The truth is, if I were forced to give one up, I’d drop the weights and cardio equipment in a heartbeat, throw my hiking bag on my back, and head out to the nearest airport. I’d focus solely on what I feel I was put here to do: explore everything that this endlessly-beautiful little blue planet has to offer.

Sometimes, I think about why I have such a strong desire to see the world. Why does it matter so much to see what’s going on someplace else? Sometimes you hear about a “wanderlust” gene, but outside of one of my sisters, no one else in my family seems all that interested in travel, so I don’t think my desire to do so is hereditary.

So, what gives? Why do I want to keep boarding airplanes or driving long distances just to go to random places, often alone? Why does it matter so much to me? The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that there are several reasons.

#1: I virtually never had the opportunity to travel as a kid but always found the world interesting.

As a kid, I remember owning a small, cheap globe that I would spin and stare at for hours on end. I’d look across all of the continents, all of the countries around the world, thinking about what it might be like to live there. I’d wonder if someone else my age in, say, Sudan, was looking at a globe or a map and wondering the same sort of things about where I lived. I would think about what it would be like to fly in an airplane, or take a cruise to someplace tropical, or, yes, flush a toilet in Australia to see if the water really does swirl in the opposite direction.

I had all of the curiosity you hope to see in a child. It was a never-ending thirst to learn more about places that I knew existed but knew nothing about. I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually get to visit them; I was perfectly content, for the time being, getting lost in my thoughts about what life was like anywhere but where I was at that moment. I knew my family couldn’t afford to travel (nor did my parents have much of an interest), so I bided my time until I’d be able to do it all on my own someday.

#2: Once I started to travel, I realized the world was so much bigger than me and it made me want to explore it even more.

As I grew older, I eventually realized that if I wanted to see the world – like just about everything else in my life – I would have to figure out how to do it on my own. That opportunity came at the end of college, when I interviewed with a medical software company looking to fill a position that offered extensive travel opportunities. Despite having little knowledge of software implementation and even less knowledge of the healthcare industry, I started researching both topics extensively to – hopefully – become a viable candidate. I saw it as my ticket into the rest of the world.

After several nerve-wracking interviews and a presentation in front of a room full of strangers, I couldn’t believe it when the company formally asked me to jump on board. Finally, I’d start traveling, and best of all – it would be on the company’s dime!

I traveled to Texas, Georgia, Michigan, and several other states and finally got a taste of what life was like outside my tiny corner of New England. You’d think all of this sudden travel would have “scratched” the itch, given me enough of a taste of the world to leave me appreciative of being home at the end of each trip, but the opposite proved true: my interest in seeing the world continued to grow.

Despite choosing to leave the company for financial reasons (student loans…heh), I continued to think about where I wanted to go next. My next position, at a healthcare system in Boston, offered regional travel, but no travel opportunities outside of New England, once again leaving me stir crazy and thinking about life outside of my New England bubble.

This travel bug eventually bit me yet again, and I decided to leave that organization for a company offering significant travel opportunities throughout the country. For two years I explored more of the U.S. – California, Illinois, more of Texas, more of Georgia, Florida – and found myself happier, personally and professionally, than I’d ever been.

Unfortunately, at the time, there were parts of my personal life that struggled with my constant travel and late flights home. Thinking I’d explored everything I needed to explore and that I needed to “realign” my priorities (NEVER think like this if you’re happy), I moved into a position at another company that offered far less travel and more “at home” time. To this day I believe this was the biggest professional mistake I’ve ever made, because soon it became clear that the company wasn’t a great fit for me, but more importantly, I underestimated how important travel was to my overall happiness.

Despite professional regret over leaving a good company/culture for one that was much more of a work in progress, one of the most profound pieces of advice I’d ever received came from a coworker at this new company who, himself, was a world traveler.

I’ll never forget our conversation. It started with the two of us talking about our actual love of flying before it segued into a discussion about the places we’d each visited.

Proudly, I told him that I’d probably seen “half” of the country. He then discussed many of the counties he’d visited, before asking, “Where have you gone internationally?”

“Canada,” I said. “I’d love to fly overseas but it’s so expensive.”

Quickly, he challenged my statement with three words I’ll never forget.

“No it’s not.”

#3: Once I realized I could afford to travel anywhere, the possibilities became endless.

That night, desperate to see if he was right (and shed the voice telling me there was no way I could afford traveling abroad), I spent hours combing through airline and hotel Web sites in various European cities to see if I could, in fact, afford to “pony up” for such a trip. Visiting Europe had long been a dream of mine, but not one I suddenly expected to be within my reach. My head (like yours) had always been filled with endless financial concerns: “Student loans! Rent! Car payments! Car insurance! Utilities! Cell phone!” I had this constant notion that world travel was “too expensive,” and at some point I stopped considering it altogether.

“He’s crazy,” I thought to myself as I started researching booking costs.

As it turns out, he wasn’t crazy at all. I was finding flights from Boston to London for under $900. I always assumed flights to Europe started at around $1,200 or $1,300. I was wrong. Flights can be expensive if you go during peak tourist season (Summer), but they won’t be if you go a little earlier or later in the year (Spring/Fall).

Next, I looked at hotels. Before long I was finding 3, 4, and 5-star hotels in both London and Brussels at or under $100/night. Better yet, if I wanted to save more money, I found highly-rated hostels could’ve been booked for under $40/night. Lastly, I researched Airbnb for a potential stay in Amsterdam, which featured clean, safe, centrally-located bedrooms for about $40/night.

Thinking that – hypothetically – if I were to travel I would do it for about 12 days, I found that I could secure lodging for a total of $440 – $1,100, depending on how nice I wanted the accommodations to be.

Finally, I researched the cost of train tickets between cities. For anyone that don’t know, Europe has an extremely efficient, high-speed rail system that’s very reasonably priced and makes it easy to hop from place to place. No matter where you are, you’re almost always a three or four hour train ride from another awesome city or country.

“What if I flew into London, took a train to Brussels to drink all the beer, took another train to Amsterdam because AMSTERDAM, and then flew back home from Amsterdam at the end of the trip?” I thought. “Would that be affordable?”

After a little more research, I learned trains between each city could be booked for about $50.

So how did it all add up?

Flights: $899

Hotels/Hostels/Airbnb (11 nights): $440 – $1,100

Trains: $130

Total: $1,469 – $2,129

“Wait, what? I can really book this for under $1,500?” I thought.

When I found out I could spend almost two weeks in Europe for well under $2,000 (not including food and booze, of course), I threw caution to the wind and immediately booked the flights and a mix of hostels (London), hotels (Brussels), and Airbnb hosts (Amsterdam) for a grand total of about $1,600. I budgeted about $100/day in spending money, bringing my grand total to ~$2,800. And believe me when I tell you that I ate, slept, and most of all, drank, like a king for two straight weeks!

Also, keep in mind that anyone traveling with a partner can further cut lodging expenses in half due to the double accommodation. Still don’t think traveling abroad is affordable?

#4: Traveling reminds me of how much I’ve overcome, that life has no limits, and that we’re lucky to be alive right here and now.

Every time I board a plane, whether it’s for work or pleasure – or skydiving! – I remind myself of how hard I’ve worked throughout my life just for the privilege to do so. Most people take something that’s seemingly so ordinary – flying in an airplane – for granted. I don’t.

The world is 4.54 billion years old. The first commercial flight happened just over 100 years ago: January, 1914. How lucky are we to be born into a period where we can see any corner of the world within a matter of hours?

Traveling reminds me of the journey I’ve taken to become the person that I am today. It wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I boarded my first flight because, truthfully, life didn’t give me the opportunity to do so before that point. Since then, in the last ten years , I’ve boarded something close to 300 flights from San Francisco to Munich.

Travel also reminds me that I’ve earned the ability to explore the world, enrich my life, and understand how both are intertwined. It feels like a long-awaited payoff for a life once filled with a constant barrage of worry, pain, and burden. Today, that life has fully evolved into one that’s better than I could have ever imagined for myself.

Finally, for me, traveling is a symbol of getting away and doing it on my own. Both are things I worked hard to accomplish over the first two and a half decades of my life. And now, as I live through this third decade, I can say with complete peace and satisfaction that I’ve never been happier.

London

Brussels

Amsterdam